In the field of portable communication services, manufacturers have built ever-more capable wireless devices into increasingly compact form factors. Some wireless devices include a liquid crystal display (LCD) touch screen or other interactive display devices that occupy a comparatively small area. For example the MOTOACTV™ fitness tracker has a touch screen size of 1.6 inches (40.64 mm) with a resolution of 176×220 pixels. One of the challenges in bringing a high-function, small-screen electronic device, such as a watch or other wearable electronic device, to market is the fact that the limited screen area makes it difficult to display a full range of typed characters or other symbolic information in the available touch screen space.
Instead of using a touch screen, some devices use up/down buttons to scroll through an alphabet and select characters for text entry. When a desired letter is displayed, an enter button can be used to select that letter. Of course, a touch screen can be used to implement virtual scroll and select buttons in a similar fashion. This type of text entry mechanism, however, may be cumbersome and frustrating to the user, because it can potentially require very long scrolling actions to arrive at a letter or other symbol the user wishes to enter into a messaging, dialing, or other program.